Aye, okay.

Minutes are adopted.

Item number one under old business, Miss Standard, authorizing an ordinance amending chapter seven of the code of Tuscaloosa.

This would be better known as the vape tax.

Yes, sir.

Um this is so we asked for this in conjunction with the 2026 fiscal year budget.

Um this is a new form of taxation on what they call consumerable vapor products.

Um this last uh legislative session, the state of Alabama through House Bill 529 created what they call a tax an excise tax on consumer consumable vapor products that are sold at wholesale within the state.

Their taxation uh rate is at 10 cents per milliliter, and then also within that same state act, they allow any um municipality to also mirror their uh law setup, their taxation setup.

You can either do one of two things, um, a part of the state's uh revenue that they collect via this excise tax will be set aside for um distribution to municipalities that do opt in by uh population distribution, same thing kind of like as SSUT that we've been talking about, or you can set up your own program.

Um we are proposing to set up our own program instead of operating in the state's program, um, just because who knows what's going to happen with this type of product into the future, if this would be possibly a more lucrative area for the city of Tuscaloosa specifically to operate in.

Um we are just mirroring the exact setup that the state has, and then we have to adopt this by tonight in order for it to be able to continue on into the future.

Um this is the deadline, otherwise we have to operate in the state's vein.

Okay, so I'm I'm not clear on why we would do something separate from the state.

If if the ours is gonna mirror what the state says, what's the what's the advantage and what's involved in us setting up the administration of our own?

So the revenue would come to us only.

Um so this the states when the state taxes the vapor product, it'll be a 10 cents per milliliter.

50 percent will go to the state's general fund, 25 percent will go to counties, 25% will go to municipalities.

No, each bucket will be distributed by population, and so we can now create our own at 10 cents per milliliter, and it all comes directly to us.

Okay, members, questions, comments?

How much non-members can I ask a crazy question?

I I know what vaping is, I've seen it, dealt with it in the family, but 10 milliliters.

Talk to me a little bit about if I go in and buy vape.

Is that like a typical vape?

You are asking the wrong person.

I have never seen a vape product beside somebody in a car beside me.

I have no idea how much 10 how much a milliliter is.

Do we I mean what kind of revenue are we talking about from vape?

Currently, from what from current, so also within the same exact state act that was passed via the legislature, a lot of products were were considered now illegal.

So a lot of products had to be taken off the shelves.

Um, and so this is gonna apply to a much smaller population of types of products since the rest are going to be considered illegal.

Um and so really the revenue off of this currently will be negligible.

We didn't even budget it in the upcoming fiscal year budget.

This is really just kind of creating a program just in case it were to become something different down the line.

Okay.

I if we got more if we got more than five figures, like if we got more than 10,000 dollars, I'd be surprised.

Okay.

Okay, sorry, got a motion question.

There who's we got a motion.

I'll make a motion.

Second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Thank you.

Vape tax is forwarded to council.

Stump tax doctors.

New business.

Uh Councilman Phail, approval of disbursement from District 6.

Funds for Bryant High School Girls Athletics, two grade.

That's correct.

Girls, uh, in particular basketball and softball.

Oh, should all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Item is approved.

Thank you.

Councilman Lanier, same thing, I think, isn't it?

No, no, I'm sorry.

Junior Cosmic Approval Disbursement from District 7 improvement funds for junior cosmos study club.

Yes.

Yeah, this is just the coordination for the Junior Cognal Study Club Federated Girls Club, the Federated Boys and Girls Club that specialized in mentor and uh scholarship that it's on it and been around since me and Walters Well, but I got most innovative a little more even in the elite of Central High School.

Alone Mario McKinnon, the elite of Central High School.

It's a long time.

Yeah, it's all about you, Cash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Motion.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Item is approved.

Item number four, Chief Dilk, authorization to execute agreement for the 2024 assistance to firefighters award.

Who could possibly oppose assistance to firefighters?

That's what we're asking, right?

So either, so that's why we got the grant.

Uh Carly could probably give you the numbers and I'll I'll explain what it's for.

So the uh the grant that we were awarded is 241,000.

There is a uh match amount that is currently budgeted in uh the fire department's uh travel and education line item.

The total amount for uh amount that we'll have to match is just over 10,000 dollars.

Pretty good trade.

So 241,000, that's that's gonna play big into specialty teams.

So, like the response that we got to make in Texas.

Uh there's a 22-man roster that is a city we're supposed to be meeting.

We're supposed to be meeting that roster and have those team members trained in those specific disciplines.

We're not at that level right now.

This is gonna get us to that level, and especially with RSA COVID, this is some extra money that's gonna get us some of those courses that they don't teach here at home.

We've got to go to Texas AM and or either help hopefully bring some instructors in, and so that's what this money is gonna do for us.

Yes, sir.

Do you have enough volunteers when you can afford it?

You'll have enough people.

Absolutely.

And just like that deployment that that you guys blessed for us to do, that's that's a huge morale boost.

That's a huge recruitment tool for those teams for those guys to actually get to see.

Hey, I'm gonna go train, but then I'm gonna actually get to go out and do that stuff.

That's that's that's the biggest recruitment tool we could have.

So any other questions?

I think not.

Any comments, questions?

Okay, is there a motion?

I mean, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Item is approved.

Item number five authorization of budget amendment for the department of public safety.

Mayor Maddox.

Thank you, Mr.

Busby, and I appreciate the finance committee's time today.

Um, I know the purview of this committee is the financial aspect of this recommendation.

Um, but since I believe we have every single councilman in here, I think it's really important to talk about the why of this recommendation.

Um, it's about making our neighborhoods safer, it's about making our business corridors safer, it's about making the events, the demonstrations, and all the other aspects of a college university city safer in what we do.

Um, this has been something that not only have I been discussing it with this council for two and a half months, I've been discussing it with the community, whether it's been the mayor's business advisory task force, whether it's been community and civic meetings, and the response has been overwhelmingly yes, and I believe it's for this reason.

We live in a different world today.

We we live in a more dangerous world today, and people know it and they feel it, and they're turning to institutions and leaders who not only recognize this, but are work to make their families and their friends and their communities safer.

And there's probably it's probably part of the reason why you see more and more communities who are moving to this model because they recognize that it's not just a police responsibility, it's a police fire, and in our case, 17 other departments all have to coordinate and mesh to be able to make our community safer.

And frankly, I believe you you believe it too.

This was ananimously adopted by the public safety committee on July 22nd, unanimously adopted by the administration committee on August 5th, and in working with the council, we tabled this until today.

And so I'm excited about making this presentation to you.

And I thought about you know what's the best way to do it, and I think sometimes you see enough power points.

I thought, let me just give you the email that I sent out to you, and I'll ask Ms.

Howard to pass it along.

The email that I sent to the council on Friday, June 27th, regarding the recommendation, and what you will see in this recommendation is why I believe that a department of public safety is absolutely essential to the future of Tuscaloosa.

Um, one is unified command for major public events.

Last year we had 75 days, over 50 events where we were providing major security in this city just beyond the normal day to day.

So one out of every seven days, this city is being asked to coordinate large events.

Most cities, 115,000 don't have that responsibility, but we're a university city.

And that probably speaks to why Auburn does what they do with a public safety department.

But we take on things such as Mercedes Benz, Kentuck that's coming up, amphitheater shows.

You see the list here.

Next is E 911 integration, emergency operations management.

You know, one thing that certainly since April 27th, 2011, but even before then, that we do really well at the city is prepping for those events.

Last year there were 12 days where we were full incident command.

Again, another reason why.

Security of our facilities, as you well know, and ultimately the financial stewardship.

And I do want to add two things that I think are important as well that we've discussed in the past couple of committee hearings.

One is mental health.

I believe the greatest challenge we have beyond just the environment that we're in, and some of that's tied together is the mental health issues we face in this community.

And being the home of mental health for the state of Alabama, and with the collapse of the mental health system throughout the state, and the fact that the infrastructure that's been put into place is not critical.

That is falling directly on the resources of the city.

We have 26 police officers who are basically focused on mental health.

And as you know, Lieutenant Parker, there's a better officer in Alabama that does and balances all that.

I don't know who it is.

But it can't be just a PD responsibility.

This is something certainly this department would oversee.

And the other one that I think is really exciting, and we have Mr.

Moore who's handling this on the non-public safety side is our integration with AI and especially with our partnership to Peregrine, but also what we're doing on drone technology.

That is the type of innovation that we want in our standard of excellence that we won't share throughout both our public safety and non-public safety.

And I think this provides an opportunity to do it.

You know the challenges that we face, and the amount of coordination and collaboration, not just even within our department, but with our external partners, requires more than ever.

What makes this to me an even greater selling point is that as I committed to you on June 27th, the recommendation we have before you is cost neutral.

I'm coming to you saying we can be better and not cost you any more money.

So if you turn over to the last page, you'll see that we have or we're recommending the following.

We believe the total budget needed for this office to begin with would be $359,652.

259,652 of that would be salary benefits and overtime.

100,000, this is an estimate, would be vehicle, laptop technology, and furniture needs.

So that's how we come up with the total cost.

We're recommending freeing up the following to pay for the cost of establishing this office.

By the way, since it's likely this position would not be hired until after January, this will not be a full year fiscal 26.

I'm giving you the worst case scenario, the fiscal year begins tomorrow, so there's there's no way it'll be authorized by tomorrow, would be to utilize ambulance franchise revenue in two different cases of EMS prevention coordinator and EMS prevention case manager.

I'm sorry, say that one police mayor.

We would use the ambulance franchise revenue to offset the EMS prevention coordinator and the ambulance franchise revenue to offset from the EMS that are currently funded for those positions, and then eliminate two vacant positions from auxiliary officer position and a vacant patrol position.

And so that would free up 357,000 dollars for the entire fiscal year.

Yes, sir.

So the ambulance franchise agreement is one that we have with North Star.

They're given um exclusivity to operate within our jurisdiction, and off of that uh exclusivity agreement, we get a percentage of their income.

Um and so the percentage of the income that we do get must go back towards um uh activities that all that will assist in uh EMS.

And so we are able to offset EMS prevention personnel with the ambulance franchise revenue that we do get in every year.

Um that contract generates about uh 180,000 dollars a year.

Um, and uh FIRE will ask to utilize it uh infrequently for a couple of purchases of equipment for EMS.

We also pay for um the salary of the uh physician that is on call uh to help with EMS prevention.

Um so normally what we do is whenever we accept that um revenue we will set it aside and um and escrow it completely, and so it will continue to build if we don't spend it, and this is uh utilization of that accumulation, Ms.

Sandridge the activities and personnel that that's being utilized to pay for now.

What happens to them?

The only uh personnel that's being paid for is the physician, Dr.

Dr.

Crawford Crawford, thank you.

Yeah, so uh his contract will continue to be paid for.

That this is can this is encompassing of that by the same ambulance franchise.

So are we not utilizing all that money now?

No, sir, we're not.

How much are we not utilizing?

Um you know, it again via what uh the fire department uh requests throughout the year.

I would say we probably bank around 120,000 every year.

Okay.

I can get you specific numbers though, if you would like for the last five years, that would be helpful.

We certainly could have there was multiple ways to go about and piece this puzzle together.

You could do it by you know, right now we have more than a dozen vacancies within PD.

You could do it that way through officers or auxiliary officers.

Um, you could do it through uh, I think we have three to four positions vacant within fire and rescue within firefighters.

What we wanted to do was just mitigate those positions, and we also know you want to have a larger discussion about vacant positions within PD.

So I didn't necessarily want to go down that road either.

Um, so there was many ways to be able to do this cost neutral.

Um so this is what we felt was the safest, cleanest way to do this to begin this journey.

One thing that I want you to know that I listened to you and I listened to you hard over the last two and a half months.

Um of the things that you wanted was because we came to you with a build out of how we saw the department looking.

And many of you that I met with individually said, hey, you know, let's can we start maybe with a sort of a single step.

And um I heard you, and I because you wanted to make certain that the council was involved every step of the way, and so this is that single step, and then how we build out around it will continue to be a decision that we work together on.

So this is a reflection of hearing you and saying I think that's a really good idea.

Let's begin first with if you approve this with hiring the exec and then moving forward.

Okay.

Committee members, any questions, comments?

Uh first of all, thank you.

This is this is a much talked about, much discussed, much examined idea.

Um, and of course, our slice of that pie amongst this group is is primarily the financial end that entails that has to be considered within the context of the uh the totality of the move.

And so I'll um I'll talk about some things that occur to me as we have those discussions, and um and I hope what we have is the most honest open uh discussion.

This is important.

This is I said the in the other committee.

This is I said the in the other committee, I think this is very likely the largest thing we will consider in this term on our council.

It is it is putting without splitting decimal points, it's taking 40 percent of our general 40-ish percent of our general fund, and I think roughly 40 percent of our personnel, and putting them back into a model that we came out of over 50 years ago operating under a single person, which up to now that person has been the mayor.

That that unified command has been the person elected by the voters to do that.

And when we talk about making things safer, I can guarantee you this would be a seven zero vote if we all thought that that's the best way to achieve that result.

I think our um our fragmentation here, and that fragmentation is actually healthy.

I think both of us probably handicapped this as 4-3 or 3-4 if it went to the MAT tonight.

I don't know which one it is, but uh I think it's important to get as close to a unified um opinion on that as we can.

And if that's as close as we can get, then we what was it?

Uh Barack Obama results have consequences, you know, votes have consequences, and we'll we'll all live with that.

Um to me, the biggest problem that our safety faces is the lack of police officers on the bank.

We assessed that we needed 292, we lowered that to 290.

We we all know that number has been coming down, not because we've looked around and said, No, we don't really need that many.

It's because we've not been able to hire what we have funded, and we have typically for about the last three years left twenty funded positions unhired.

We uh we run at about 230 officers available for patrol when you add in the relatively normal uh people who are out on this leave or that leave, or you know, we're running about 245, 244 on the payroll, and that has continued to creep down, and we have done everything we could do in the millions of dollars, take home cars for officers, uh retention bonuses to keep people, sign-on bonuses, pay raises, a session into RSA at 10 million.

We're not treating this problem.

We've been throwing everything we add it at it that we can, and I do not believe that that problem will be significantly remedied by another level of bureaucracy put over the existing fire and police.

That's that's where we did that's where we differ, I think.

Not in whether we would all advocate and vote for with our our pockets uh being safer.

We we are we're all in agreement on that and I appreciate your consider.

You know, I I was attempting that that 20 funded but not employed officers, and Miss Stangrids and I can quibble about numbers, but I think it's three and a half million a year.

She thinks it's a big number, whatever it is, and I and so I do appreciate that not being tapped on to place this in the cost uh uh neutral category.

That's on the holistic side as we as we begin then necking this down into the the proper business of this committee, which is the financial side, which is the financial side um you know if if if a majority of these seven people believe this will make the city safer, we will find the money.

We all know that.

We will find the money.

Um I think it is getting to that unified agreement on the impact of another level of bureaucracy uh over to existing departments that are the largest or together the largest that we have.

Um Ms.

Kemp, what you there?

What tell us a little bit about the financial side of this position?

And I assume from what you said, Mayor, that the initial the initial phase and we're just the per just the position, right?

Yes, sir.

Okay, the financial side, yeah.

What pay category?

How much pay is that?

Yes, sir.

Uh um, so as far as the position, um it would be graded as a PF8.

So the public safety pay plan currently is PF one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

We would need to add PF8.

Um, and the pay starts at step one is 144,000 206.20 cents is the the step one pay, meaning the minimum starting pay, and then step 15 is the max, and it's uh 203, 758 dollars and 59 cents.

Now, one of the things that we mentioned before, when I think we brought this to admin or the public safety committee, is that we aren't able to start someone at the top of the pay plan without council approval, which would be Mr.

Time and Mr.

Fail as listed in city code.

Um, but that that is the range that we're currently proposing for the position.

So is this position eligible for overtime?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

I I want to I want to bookmark that and come back to it.

We uh you know we've committed to doing a national search for this position, right?

Absolutely.

And what does that involve?

So there are a couple of ways that we can do it.

Of course, when we have um a position and there's a national search, um, we of course we uh advertise on your LinkedIn and all of your other um advertising uh websites that you have.

We also would reach out to um potentially other government agencies to advertise because most likely, of course, this will be someone that currently votes or municipality or state government or such.

Um if uh the council would like we could use a recruiting firm to assist with that, um, we would just of course need the funding for that, um, but that is something we could also consider as well.

And have we done a survey to inform ourselves of what we think of a median pay might be for a position like this in a town this size?

Yes, what do we do?

That is that is one of the first things that we started with.

So when we started researching the position and what other uh cities had this position, we looked at pay for cities this size.

We looked at any cities that were in the big 10 um that had this position as well as throughout the Southeast.

So this was definitely in line.

And which cities in the Big Ten in Alabama have this position?

Auburn Mobile, Auburn Mobile.

Um there was also I think which Oxford is not in the big 10, but I think Oxford also had one of the uh had this model as well.

Um so those are the cities that we looked at in Alabama.

So out of the two in the big 10, Auburn and Mobile, uh I know because we sat in and and interviewed um the Alban public safety director.

I know that one is not eligible for overtime.

Is mobile?

I'm not sure.

Um I will find out for sure.

Yes, I'll talk about this director Liskey because I've had communication with him as well.

So committee members, any other questions, comments?

Yeah, I was just gonna say that one thing I am very proud of in my five years or four or five years long as it feels like longer, but we've been on the council is our council has voted seven to nothing for anything that's been brought up for public safety for fire police.

We've talked through issues, we've looked at it and said, you know, this is what we need to do.

This is how we fund it.

I think that's a I'm proud of that from I don't know from our council.

I think this is something else that I guess as a group we got to decide is this the direction we want to go, is this the right thing?

Is this have we looked at all angles of it?

Have we looked at the pros, the cons and made sure that if we create this, it'd be very hard to dismantle it and go away.

So I think that's still a discussion that we have had, and I guess we will still continue to have.

Decisions have to be made very quickly, and especially the more personnel that layer on scene, the more difficulty gets with the command and control structure.

How would we be ready for that?

What organization apparatus gives us the best ability to be able to respond to that?

I started out by saying making Tuscaloosa safer, and I certainly believe this recommendation does, but it also does something else.

It makes our response more effective.

If somebody takes a hand grenade and puts it on a drone and drops it off on the strip, having a public safety director is not going to stop that.

That's not.

Do you see fissures in here's why I'm about so I I am accustomed to operating in environments of of chaos and violence and where the clarity of command is absolutely essential, but I typically see it handled a different way.

Whereas going into the situation, that arm, in this case, fire police, in other cases, Navy, Air Force, that arm which would have precedence of experience and oversight over this kind of is designated so that the commander goes, we're moving in, fire, you got the lead, police, you're in support, move out and draw fire.

Why is that not?

Why is that inadequate?

Number one that tasked designation of lead agency by the nature of the event.

We have within the city of Tuscaloosa protocols that we think outline every significant type of event that we would face.

Bombing, mass another uh active shooter, hazmat, cyber disruption, etc.

Unlike those the United States military, we do not have a very long chain of command that is exercised to be able to deal with those things if they happen with people who are out.

This weekend, and I hate to go into detail because you don't like to talk about situations, but this weekend I'm in OKC.

So I'm out of town, uh uh out of town.

If the police chief is out of town, and we have an active shooter event that occurs on the strip at one o'clock in the morning, or a hazmat, let's say a hazmat event, and now of a sudden I've got the deputy chief fighting with the fire chief about who's going to put units where.

I'm not sending my men into a hazmat situation.

Oh, hell yes, you are sending your people into a hazmat situation.

Everything stops.

It's not like the United States military, it stops on a dime.

You can't get in touch with the mayor, you can't get in touch with the police chief, you've got a deputy chief now talking to a chief, or God forbid you can't get the other chief, and now you got two captains.

It I have seen some of this in my experience.

I mean, I experience 20 years of experience brings me to this point of knowing what we do really good, but also seeing quite frankly, where we didn't do a good job.

And we were very fortunate for the professionalism of our firefighters and police officers in the field, but our chain of command was disrupted.

And unlike the president of the United States, a mayor doesn't have 24-7 communications team with him.

Or the the police chief doesn't have any.

Well, I was talking more at the battalion command.

Yeah, I mean, but we we don't have the communications apparatus that you think that you would have.

And when you have 75 days a year where you've got major events going on, us being well trained, which would be another part of this department, making certain we were well trained for these events, the the world has changed, and you need somebody every day who's waking up thinking about these things and thinking about what happens if Mark Belk is at Disney World with his family, and the other battalion chief has COVID or deputy chief has COVID, and now we're down to a battalion chief who has no experience in dealing with all of this.

I mean, those are the things we need to be getting better at the city because these challenges are coming, and I can tell you part of the this past weekend, you get briefed, you certainly hear what other cities are dealing with.

It is a more dangerous world, Mr.

Busby, and we have to up our game to meet it.

And Tuscaloosa is a major city.

When you think about 16 days a year, we have a lot of people here, and they're within three to four city blocks, and then they migrate tens of thousands into dozens of blocks.

So that's why I believe again that command and control element, this helps us in that command and control.

It gives us better command and control.

Go ahead.

No, no, Mr.

Well, I worked under the public safety commissioner, and he did not coordinate anything.

That was a political position.

It was not anything like what we're talking about right now.

And I've I've vacillated back and forth about this.

But ever since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, whatever you think of Mr.

Kirk.

Doesn't matter.

He was murdered in a situation where this public safety was almost non-existent.

And that could happen in Tuscaloosa, Alabama very easily because we have those situations quite a bit.

There's a young man that's a member of First Baptist Church who is probably the heir of parent to Charlie Cook right here in Tuscaloosa.

Now he is at Auburn, but uh that concerns me.

His family's concerned about his life.

But it's not just him, it's people that lead in any sort of capacity, whether it's you or you or you, and I think we need to be ready for today's craziness.

We live in an era of chaos, and some people live to create that chaos.

And if having this position will keep one of you safe, our Bryland Hollihan safe, or some other student out here at the University of Alabama safe, I have to support it.

I don't know how it's gonna work.

I mean, I we'll see.

I I'm confident it'll work right if we get the right person, but after what has gone on in the last few weeks, I just have to support it.

I I'm in support of it too.

I think we can afford to uh the ladies of luxury to do that.

I think we need to this is just making us proactive.

I think my dad used to tell me it's better to have it with you and not need it.

Yep, not have it.

I'd rather have needed and not have right, absolutely.

So I would I'd rather be strapped, and I think you know, the climate we're living in, uh we need somebody that eats sleeping crap, public safety.

I know we say we got the mayor where the mayor got to run the whole city.

Ask me, I run district seven, I get calls about cats, dogs, trees, cat ladies called me this wood.

But you know, I'm just saying, and but that's a lot.

I refer to the kid.

You know, I mean, but somebody who's trained in this field, I mean, I think we need to I don't even know if there should be uh such an anti discussion when we know how the world is moving right now, and getting no better.

So I think I I'm in full support of it, and uh I think we should probably go ahead and push it through.

I don't think we have a luxury to wait because uh we might need a public safety director of night at counsel, I'm just saying these events are happening more and more every time you turn the TV on.

I mean, you had certain struggle um that was set up just a couple of days ago.

The same day we've got to be a good thing.

Mr.

Kirk was killed, there was a school in in Colorado that got no publicity because of the other, right?

You're right.

So anybody else have any comments, questions?

I I certainly um being in the moment, it does seem uh, and it is uh there's a level of insanity going on with the violence.

I do not happen to believe that that's an isolated part of our history for those of you that are old enough to remember 1968.

We had Texas Tower shootings, shooters taking out people, president gone, and then in 68 we took out the leading Democratic candidate, Martin Luther King, and a couple.

I mean, cities were being burned down.

I'm not I'm not telling you the pain and disorder that we're seeing around us is not real, it is, but I do believe it has a perspective in the context of times when we've seen that are extremely violent, extremely tense.

And again, if uh if I come to believe that a public safety director is the right remedy for that, I'm all in.

On the finance piece of that, Ms.

Kemp, I do want to you're gonna report back on the overtime piece.

And let my vision of what we've talked about, Mayor is someone with an administrative financial and coordination role, in addition to developing policy.

I'm not my vision and what's been described to us certainly from the Auburn model is not a super operator who is highly skilled in both police and fire operations, but somebody who coordinates their interaction and priority and precedence.

That's why I'm I'm a little caught off guard by the inclusion of an overtime component in this.

Correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And I I can tell you why.

Um okay, why not go ahead?

Because be perfectly blunt.

Um I hope we can hire somebody from internal, and chances are most likely they're going to be sworn, either a sworn police officer or sworn firefighter.

Um I hope one day that Mark Delk may be in a position.

If he progresses along to have this position, or someone else in the organization.

My goal has always been as mayor to hire internally first.

I I've all I've always thought we should create a farm system that brings people up that are developed and ready that understand the unique needs of Tuscaloosa.

Now that doesn't mean though that if we have a superstar candidate, that we're not going to go and look for that candidate.

But I felt like we had to have that piece there.

If you know, when we move forward with this, one of the things, and and I know Miss Howard and Mr.

Pell have agreed to be part of the interview committee as chairman of public safety and administration.

It's a person building this department.

How much familiarity do they need to have with our existing departments to build it?

Sure.

So that it begins successfully.

And I think that has to be part of the interview discussions, which they will be part of.

So again, it may be we have some superstar from the outside, or we may have a superstar from the inside.

If it's from the inside, I want to build a budget that would reflect that because no police officer or firefighter is going to want to walk away from their overtime as a sworn officer.

And we also, you know, are with the conversion also coming as well.

So I think that sets up a perfect opportunity for us to continue as.

Okay.

Um other comments, questions.

And thank you.

I said I wanted good discussions table.

I think we're getting it.

Uh Ms.

Kemp, I would like to know the answer on the mobile position.

I am going to ask for a month, 30 days, next next monthly meeting, to table this.

Um I want to do some more reflection and research.

I want to hear some more input from the community.

We're hearing from different segments.

Um I'm not hearing the same things that y'all are hearing.

I don't know about the rest of us.

I will make a motion to table this for 30 days in finance.

Sir, a second.

All in favor say something.

So do we have a month to do that?

I mean, yes, we do.

Well, hold on, hold a second.

There's a there's a motion and a second, sir.

Can I speak for a second?

You can.

All right, all right.

Look at me speak on it.

I'm just saying, is it so you pass every committee it comes to yours and you lay it off for a month?

Uh that even should that be.

Yes, that's what a that's what a committee chairman has to get already to do.

I don't talk as much as many people, but trust me, I'm I'm familiar with the operations of a committee.

It doesn't sound like it.

It doesn't.

No, it doesn't.

It does sound like to me that you really are concerned about the city safety as much as we're concerned about your ego and how this is presented to you.

Well, let's be not talking about you know, you don't come in here and get personal on this.

I gave you a chance.

There's a motion and a second.

All in favor say aye.

I'm gonna be a couple motion passed.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion secondary.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.